Statutory Issues Related to Investigations
USA PATRIOT Act - Amendment
For example, certain Internet service providers do not allow their customers to send bulk unsolicited emails, or "spam." Customers who send spam would be in violation of the provider’s terms of service, but would not qualify as trespassers – both because they are authorized users and because they have an existing contractual relationship with the provider. If, however, an intruder gained unauthorized access to the ISP network and sent spam to millions of victims, the intruder would be a trespasser because he did not have authority to access any part of the network. Because the identity of the intruder is generally unknown at the time monitoring begins, the ISP does not “know” that there is an existing contractual relationship and the trespasser is not excluded from the definition of a trespasser.
Trespasser Example
To correct this problem, the amendments in Section 217 of the Act allow victims of computer attacks to authorize persons "acting under color of law" to monitor trespassers on their computer systems. Under new section 2511\(2\)\(i\), those operating in either of two lanes, law enforcement or counterintelligence, may intercept the communications of a computer trespasser transmitted to, through, or from a protected computer. The PATRIOT Act created a definition of "computer trespasser." A trespasser is any person who accesses a protected computer without authorization. The definition explicitly excludes any person "known by the owner or operator of the protected computer to have an existing contractual relationship with the owner or operator for access to all or part of the computer." Select the link for an example.
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